Red Sonja Vol III: The Forgiving of Monsters By Gail Simone Art by Walter Geovani

Red Sonja Vol III: The Forgiving of Monsters

By Gail Simone

Art by Walter Geovani

So here we are with the final volume of Gail Simone's run on Red Sonja. I've gone over the character's history in my first review of Red Sonja, as well as a bit of Ms. Simone's comic book career (which I'll link again for y'all http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2016/06/red-sonja-queen-of-plagues-by-gail.html which was also the first review that our editor joined us on!). In last week's review I also talked a bit about Dynamite, the company publishing the comic in question. So I believe this time, there's nothing left but to jump right into it.

We join Red Sonja hunting for the Wizard Kalas Ra, who has taken up the unpleasant hobby of kidnapping the elderly and doing vile experiments on them until they die. Why does he do this? Because children are too quick for him and prone to biting (his words folks!). Sonja rather quickly dispatches him when he makes the twin mistakes of letting her into slicing range and gloating about his power. Which leads us to the first lesson in this lesson-packed story: murder first, gloat after. Sadly our heroine makes her own mistake when she talks back to the wizard and gives him her Name (Editors Note: Oh god, no!). Which is the second lesson: never talk to a wizard you're planning to kill. Seriously I've read enough fantasy in this review series alone that the paper used in those books could make a full grown oak tree and it never ends well, not once! Just murder him (or her) as quickly and thoroughly as possibly and don't share any personal information! The dying Kalas Ra shows why telling a psychotic dying man with magical powers beyond the ken of mortals your name is a mistake by cursing her. His curse? Red Sonja will never again be able to forgive, not even for the slightest of mistakes.

What's interesting about this is that this doesn't cause some massive change in Red Sonja's personality or behavior. She's still capable of kindness and courage but at the least transgression she explodes into a berserk rage that can only be stilled by murdering people in job lots. Even this is really just a magnification of Sonja's own tendencies, so this doesn't feel like something that is afflicting Sonja; more something that is simply pushing Red Sonja to the extreme end point of what's already there in her heart and head. In the middle of all this wanders in the last survivor of the group of mercenaries who murdered all the people of Sonja's village (he's the last survivor of that band because Sonja killed the rest of them). As you can imagine Red Sonja is pretty willing to drop everything to hunt down and brutally murder this last loose end of the greatest tragedy in her life but even this simple and straightforward desire is complicated. Kalas Ra had a brother, Katharas Ra, who is also a wizard and wants to murder everyone for daring to hurt his brother. I'll admit this kinda doesn't sit with me as well as Sonja's quest for vengeance. I have a little brother.  As is good and natural, I love the guy, but if I found out he was kidnapping people for vile, lethal experiments and someone killed him for that? I would be upset that he was dead but if you don't want to be killed, you shouldn't go around kidnapping and murdering people! There's a point where you have to admit that even your brother kinda earned his fate. I suppose it might be because Katharas Ra doesn't view the villagers as people so he doesn't care about their losses. Only his own.

In this story Sonja grapples with the power of forgiveness and how far she is willing to go to reap revenge for the wrongs done to her. It's also here that we see her at her bravest as she is willing to take extreme steps to ensure that she doesn't become a danger to innocent and defenseless folks. It takes courage to rise up against those who would oppress or harm you but it takes even more to disarm yourself so that you will not in turn oppress or harm others. Of course, even disarmed, Red Sonja is a dangerous person and Katharas Ra is finding himself staring down the barrel of something he's been trying to avoid for years: a fair fight. I have a few words on forgiveness myself here. Forgiveness is a powerful and in many ways a good thing and there is a danger in curling up to every harm and slight ever done to you like a beloved pet. That tends toward hatred and rage that warps you and leaves you unable to feel much else or to become so obsessed over what was done to you that you can't make your life about anything else. That said our modern day pop culture often confuses the idea of forgiveness with forgetting what the other guy did and letting it go without consequences. Note I say consequences, not punishment. It's entirely possible to forgive someone while deciding they're an awful person and it's healthier for you to have nothing more to do with them. Sometimes it's necessary to forgive someone for your own well being but that doesn't mean you should wipe the slate clean and forget it happened. Redemption is a completely separate thing from forgiveness and has much stricter requirements, and I think that's something else modern pop culture forgets. I'll stop here but if anyone really wants me to get into this, say so in the comments and I'll be happy to discuss it.

The next story in this graphic novel is Red Sonja defending a library and I'll admit I’m a sucker for a good defend the books story line (Editors Note: Is anyone surprised?  I’m not!  Also, the editor approves!)! The Empress Dowager was a common born woman who won the Emperor's favor. Being a very strong willed woman she was able dominate the court and when the Emperor passed she took the throne. If this sounds familiar to you, it's because it's basically a version of the story of Empress Cixi of China, one of the last monarchs of that nation. Her story is to long and complicated for this review but let me encourage you to look her up for yourselves! Anyway, this version became a woman-hating tyrant, turning against the idea of educating women or allowing other women to have high station upon taking the throne. Red Sonja in a post orgy doze is approached by four nuns and asked to defend their library which has been marked for burning. Sonja is less then excited at this idea but her own nagging sense of morality pulls her into it and along the way she manages to learn a little bit about the value of the written word. Even if that means facing down three of the worlds best assassins... Alone. I enjoyed it, but then I hope no one is expecting me to dislike stories about how important books are.

Gail Simone's run on Red Sonja leans toward morality plays a great deal. Where Red Sonja is given a task or put to an ordeal and learns a moral lesson along the way. Some of these lessons are fairly profound, such as the courage of a chef who refuses to abandon her even if that means rotting in a pit; others can be a bit cliché. There's a bit of irony in this for me as morality plays are a very Christian form of entertainment. While Sonja's love of drink and casual sex make her a very non-Christian protagonist in a lot of ways, her efforts to defend people who can't fight for themselves and the values she learns mean that in other ways she wouldn't be out of place among more Christian heroes. I don't think this is intentional but merely a demonstration of how deeply Christianity still influences our society. This version of Red Sonja is frankly my favorite so far. While crude and rather hedonistic, she's also brave and shows a certain rough compassion towards her fellow human beings. The balance of flaws, failures, virtues and successes make this Red Sonja feel like more of a person to me some of the earlier versions I've read and I hope future writers learn from this and build on what Ms. Simone has laid out for us. Some will note that the scale mail bikini is present in the series, Red Sonja never wears it out in the field where she's expecting violence but seems to reserve it for “formal” encounters with people in authority which makes it an act of rebellion in many ways. This Sonja instead wears armor that covers most of her body when doing serious violence. This graphic novel was violent and action packed while not shying away from the consequences of violence and had a good number of interesting minor characters that appear to liven up Sonja's life or at least keep her focused on the task at hand. Red Sonja Vol III: The Forgiving of Monsters by Gail Simone closes out this series with an A. I encourage everyone to read it.

Join us next week as we return to novels with The Priestess and the Dragon by Nicolette Andrews.  As always, keep reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.